Dish Network Telemarketing Lawsuit Award Triples to $61M

An apparent attempt at reducing a jury award in a Dish Network telemarketing lawsuit has backfired, resulting in a new award of treble damages.

In late May of this year, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Eagles tripled the jury’s original award in a Dish Network telemarketing lawsuit brought by plaintiff Thomas Krakauer in 2014, invoking the treble damages provision of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA.

Judge Eagles found that defendant Dish Network purposely ignored its telemarketing contractor’s practice of calling persons on Dish Networks own “do not call” list. As a result of that alleged unlawful telemarketing, Dish Network is now on the hook for a total jury award of $61 million.

Earlier this year, the company sought to evade what was originally a $20.5 million jury award by seeking a new trial in this Dish Network telemarketing lawsuit. The satellite giant was recently held responsible for over 51,000 distinct advertising phone calls that plaintiff Krakauer claimed violated the TCPA.

Krakauer claimed that for 2 years he was called repeatedly by Dish even though he was on the national Do Not Call Registry.

Dish Network, the popular direct-broadcast satellite service provider, provides interactive television services, Internet access and satellite TV to millions of American customers.

Among other things, the TCPA protects customers from unwanted solicitation via text message and puts limits on what kind of phone calls companies can make to customers.

Dish sought a new trial for this Dish Network telemarketing lawsuit stating that its due process rights were violated because the court allowed the jury to impose damages for the group of 51,119 phone calls as a whole rather than allow Dish to defend each claim.

Dish Network argued that a telephone number cannot itself state a TCPA claim or collect on a TCPA judgment. Because of this, Dish argued, they asked for an “individualized adversarial process” in which each distinct claim can be challenged.

Dish also states that at the original trial for the Dish Network telemarketing lawsuit, there were numerous prejudicial errors.

The argument as to whether or not a call recipient’s identity needs to be proved in order to receive an award is at the center of this contest. Dish argues that the identity is paramount to the validity of a TCPA claim. Krakauer countered that the identity is secondary to proving that Dish did in fact violate the TCPA in over 51,000 phone calls.

Krakauer said, “It is sufficient that every telephone line has a subscriber, and every call was received.”

He also argued that Dish’s request for a new trial is an attempt to recover some of the multi-million dollar verdict. In addition, Krakauer urges the court to order that any undistributed funds not be given back to Dish, but to the government.

Dish Network’s arguments found no favor with Judge Eagles. The judge found that Dish Network failed to monitor with telemarketing contractor SSN’s activity despite having received thousands of complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls.

The judge noted that Dish Network continued to work SSN even though Dish Network knew SSN had been implicated in three other lawsuits.

This Dish Network Telemarketing Lawsuit is Krakauer v. Dish Network LLC and is Case No. 1:14-CV-00333 in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.

UPDATE: November 2017, the Dish Network Do Not Call Registry class action settlement is now open. Click here to file a claim.

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